Digital Commons Network^™

Posttraumatic Symptoms As Predictors Of Mobile App Engagement: An Evaluation Of Usage Data From Public Users Of An App For Military Sexual Trauma, Shilpa Hampole

Master's Theses

Veterans who have experienced military sexual trauma (MST) often face barriers to help-seeking. Mental health mobile applications (apps) such as Beyond MST, developed by the National Center for PTSD, can expand access to evidence-based coping tools, psychoeducation, and resources. However, user engagement is crucial for these apps to be effective. Researchers are exploring factors impacting app engagement, with emerging evidence suggesting that symptom severity may play a key role. This study examined whether the severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and posttraumatic negative cognitions, as well as level of well-being, are associated with app engagement. Anonymous app usage data …

Social Media Bot Detection Using Dropout-Gan, Anant Shukla

Master's Projects

Bot activity on social media platforms is a pervasive problem, undermining the credibility of online discourse and potentially leading to cybercrime. We propose an approach to bot detection using Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN). We discuss how we overcome the issue of mode collapse by utilizing multiple discriminators to train against one generator, while decoupling the discriminator to perform social media bot detection and utilizing the generator for data augmentation. We demonstrate that our approach outperforms---in terms of accuracy---the state-of-the-art techniques in this field. We also show how the generator in the GAN can be used to evade such a classification …

Suburban Bay Area City Approaches To Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion (Dei), Arianna Bush

Master's Projects

The ultimate goal of government is to serve the community for the greater good. Creating an inclusive and representative environment for those working in government and for the population they serve will improve many aspects of public service. In recent decades, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) have been increasingly prioritized as America has become increasingly diverse. However, this effort intensified in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. “Three years after Floyd's death and the movement hit the streets, 74% of Black executives said they saw positive change in hiring, retention, and …

Comparing Balancing Techniques For Malware Classification, Ranjit John

Master's Projects

There have been many breakthroughs over the years in the field of Machine Learning to detect and classify malware threats. However, training a holistic machine learning model to effectively classify malware has been an ongoing topic of research. Datasets represent some malware types disproportionately, which can affect the performance of machine learning classifiers. Without ample data, less common but highly dangerous malware can go undetected by classifiers, leading to devastating outcomes. Data balancing techniques have proven to be effective in representing minority classes better and lessening the bias towards the majority class. Also, recent research showed that generative modeling effectively …

A Censorship Resistant News Website Using The Ethereum Blockchain, Hoang Lai

Master's Projects

Misleading information, false claims, and fabricated news articles not only misguide readers but also undermine the trustworthiness of the news platforms themselves. The blockchain provides decentralized, immutable data storage and offers a promising solution to prevent censorship on news websites. Compared to traditional news websites, a decentralized application (dApp) offers benefits such as greater stability and resistance to information manipulation. A decentralized web app is harder to attack than centralized servers since the database is stored across a blockchain network. Moreover, blockchain prevents censorship by letting readers check data across all blocks in the Blockchain, which is good for a …

Predicting Remaining Useful Life Of Turbofan Engines On Cmapss And N-Cmapss Using Deep Recurrent Neural Networks, Samaikya Tippareddy

Master's Projects

Aircraft engines are susceptible to failure at multiple points over their lifespan and need replacement or repairs. The ability to proactively determine how long an engine will function helps avoid fatalities and build a reliable prognostic system. To accomplish this, predictive models are being developed using various approaches like physics-based and data-driven techniques. Physics-based models need huge computing power for simulations and domain knowledge for understanding and implementing the models. Alternatively, if we have substantial data for prediction, data-driven models can be used. In this research, we use data-driven approach for engine Remaining-Useful-Life (RUL) prediction on the NASA Commercial Modular …

Formula 1 Commentary Generator Using Generative Artificial Intelligence, Hiral Moliya

Master's Projects

This project aims to create a high-quality commentary generation system utilizing cutting-edge Generative AI technologies, with a particular focus on the T5 transformer-based text-to-text transfer transformer (T5). The primary goal is to create a fully autonomous and contextually aware commentary system that will be able to provide consistent and insightful commentary on dynamic events that reflect the level of detail normally associated with human commentary. Upon giving the input as a text input of the race events the model using large language models that are trained on a large range of datasets creates text-based commentary. The system in order to …

Parallel Powerplay: Optimizing Performance With Mapreduce And Kubernetes Fusion, Shradha Chaturvedi

Master's Projects

The combination of MapReduce (MR) & Kubernetes (K8s) strengths is not explored, and this study leverages the synergy between the two frameworks to meet the growing demands of data-intensive applications. First, this report elaborates on the existing literature work to understand the pros and cons of using MR and K8s, in what use cases these frameworks come to use, and investigates the effectiveness of research studies that explore the combination. This study aims to research the efficacy of the fusion of MR and K8s, considering these factors - application use case, infrastructure design, resource allocation, load balancing, and hypertuning parameters …

Advancing Phishing Protection: Employing Sophisticated Methods For Precise Url Evaluation, Abbhinav Reddie Nomuiia

Master's Projects

In short, the incidence of phishing - the illegal act of people pretending to be well-known companies to secure personal information - has skyrocketed in the past few years. In 2022 alone, 300,000 consumers in the United States were captured by scammers using phishing techniques, losing in all over $50 million. In the span of two weeks, over 510 million attempts occurred in a variety of sectors, particularly instant messaging platforms, package delivery businesses, and digital currency trading. Since most businesses have recognized that they are prone to these exposure cases, there has been a sixty percent increase in businesses …

Optimization Of Inter-Satellite Routing Using Lstm-Based Path Prediction Model, Yash Bhamare

Master's Projects

Satellite networks are one of the most important components that fulfill the world’s need for connectivity. To ensure that communication is efficient and reliable, robust routing algorithms are a must. Because, although it is true that certain routing characteristics may not be permanently and continuously flawless, a routing technique must effectively adapt to modifications in such network characteristics. The new routing method uses a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model to manage dynamic metrics for Low Earth Orbit satellite networks. This LSTM model is aimed at predicting the optimal routing direction on the premise that a satellite is soon to be, …

Explaining The Maliciousness Of Urls Using Shap And Lime, Ayush Nair

Master's Projects

No system has ever reached the levels of proliferation that the Internet now enjoys. It stands as the most widely spread distributed system across the globe; yet this evolution has given rise to an ever-growing wave of malintent that challenges every user and entity on the vast expanse of cyberspace. Malicious URLs loom large as vulnerabilities leaving users naked as they traverse online landscapes, but cybersecurity experts craft models with esoteric algorithms in a bid to stem this tide and shield users from cybercrime. However, peering into the decision-making corridors of these models holds key importance, it’s through understanding such …

Multiclass Lung Disease Classification In Chest X-Ray Images: A Fine-Tuned Hybrid Cnn-Gnn Approach Using Transfer Learning And Feature Extraction, Vinay Vilas Khade

Master's Projects

In clinical practice, it is still difficult to accurately diagnose lung diseases from chest X-ray (CXR) images. In this study, we propose a new hybrid method for identifying several types of lung diseases using CXR images by combining Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) with Graph Neural Networks (GNNs). The framework of our proposed methodology takes advantage of CNN’s ability to extract detailed visual features and GNN’s capacity to understand complex relationships between these features, enabling comprehensive analysis in a multi-class classification setting of COVID-19, pneumonia, and normal lung conditions. We used multiple transfer learning models such as DenseNet201, VGG16, VGG19, MobileNetV2, …

Opinion Graphs Construction For Reviews Using Transfer Learning And Large Language Models, Yichen Lin

Master's Projects

With the rapid development of the Internet, reading online reviews before making a purchase, booking a hotel, or making a restaurant reservation has become a part of daily life. Customers often consider reviews as crucial supplementary information before making decisions on how to spend their money. However, reading many reviews to gain helpful information takes time and effort. This project proposes a new method OpinionGraphGenerator that aims to create opinion graphs from hotel reviews to reduce the high volume of text in reviews while preserving essential insights. In an opinion graph, vertices are semantically similar opinions, where each opinion consists …

Gesture Recognition Dynamics: Unveiling Video Patterns With Deep Learning, Nithish Reddy Agumamidi

Master's Projects

This paper, Gesture Recognition Dynamics: Revealing Video Patterns with Deep Learning, explores the combination of Long Short-Term Memory(LSTM) with Convolutional Neural Network(CNN) in the identification of convoluted human activities. The study assesses LSTM’s capability to capture temporal dependencies and CNN’s potential to apprehend and extract spatial characteristics to detect the gestures from UCF50. It further evaluates the architecture linkage of LSTM and CNN, which will improve the analytical capacity to interpret and validate dynamic gesture trends. The paper utilizes Mediapipe, an open-source framework created by Google specifically designed for extracting poses. The Mediapipe tool is well-designed to track important body …

Gender Classification Through Postural Analysis: A Comparative Study Of 2d Images And 3d Reconstructions., Prathamesh Dixit

Master's Projects

In computer vision, gender classification has become a vital task having applications in human-computer interaction, healthcare, and surveillance. In this study, we look at a two-step approach based on human joint information for gender classification. In this research, we use convolutional neural networks (CNNs).

With Leeds Sports Pose (LSP) dataset, we use a C5 pre-trained model to map and extract joint information from 2D RGB images and after pre-processing and background removal, we use PiFUHD to transform these 2D images into 3D representations. Next, we train our models on RGB images and joint images for both 2D and 3D representations. …

Understanding Distracted Driving And Gaze Patterns In A Driving Simulator: Simple Vs. Complex Challenges, Rishi Prabhat Narayana Sannala

Master's Projects

Distracted driving has grown in criticality over the recent years, given the numerous distractions that drivers face today, and which have further been magnified by the proliferation of in-vehicle technologies and mobile devices. Such distractions can seriously compromise a driver's ability to be fully focused on the road and to carry out timely responses and informed decisions that are key in minimizing the risks of a crash and maximizing road safety. The general aim of the research is to observe how simple versus complex distractors affect driving performance and gaze patterns. The eyetracker used is the Tobii Pro Fusion, synchronized …

Image Segmentation By Convolutional Neural Networks In Coral Resilience Research, Jennifer Benbow

Master's Projects

As ocean temperatures rise, coral bleaching is becoming more frequent and severe. Selective breeding experiments show promise for enhancing coral resilience, but scaling these projects is hindered by the labor-intensive nature of taking numerous time series measurements as corals grow. Automating this process with computer vision is one solution to this bottleneck, and to our knowledge, no such tool exists at present. To fill this gap, we have trained a set of machine learning models, based on the Mask R-CNN framework, for segmenting juvenile corals in lab-based coral resilience research. This work shows that retraining the Mask R-CNN architecture through …

An Empirical Analysis Of Adversarial Attacks In Federated Learning, Rohit Mapakshi

Master's Projects

In this paper, we experimentally analyze the susceptibility of selected Federated Learning (FL) systems to the presence of adversarial clients. We find that temporal attacks significantly affect model performance in FL, especially when the adversaries are active throughout and during the ending rounds of the FL process. Machine Learning models like Multinominal Logistic Regression, Support Vector Classifier (SVC), Neural Network models like Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Convolution Neural Network (CNN), Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and tree-based machine learning models like Random Forest and XGBoost were considered. These results highlight the effectiveness of temporal attacks and the need …

Comparitive Analysis Of Time Series Forecasting Using Frequency Informed Dense Neural Networks And Lstm, Avinash Mangalore Suresh

Master's Projects

Time series forecasting influences our lives on a daily basis, being a versatile tool in various application areas like environmental studies, finance, medicine and much more. While there are many established statistical and deep learning approaches to model time series data, each implementation comes with their own set of drawbacks or areas of improvements. Most of the existing deep learning architectures and research have focused on modeling time series data in the time-domain exclusively. However training deep learning models in the time-domain has some drawbacks, mainly due to the inherent temporal dependence of each time-step on the time-steps before it, …

Personalizing Image Generation From Prompts Using Generative Ai, Mit Ramesh Jain

Master's Projects

The rapid advancements in Generative AI, particularly Text-to-Image (T2I) models, have opened up new possibilities for personalized image generation. Finetuning large T2I models for specific downstream tasks is a key approach to achieving tailored outputs. In recent years, Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT) techniques have gained significant attention as a cost-effective and efficient solution for fine-tuning large models. Initially developed for fine-tuning large language models (LLMs), PEFT techniques have been extensively studied and compared in the context of language tasks. However, regarding the T2I domain, there is a lack of similarly exhaustive and detailed literature on PEFT. This research project, in the …

Load Balancing For Cloud-Based Applications, Nitish Ranjan

Master's Projects

Effective load balancing is critical in ensuring optimal resource utilization, reducing latency, and improving the overall performance of distributed systems. This report commences with a comprehensive literature review on existing load-balancing algorithms, examining their methodologies, strengths, and limitations within various computing environments, including cloud computing, data centers, and network traffic management. Despite significant advancements in this field, the dynamic nature of distributed systems, coupled with the ever-increasing demand for efficient data processing, poses ongoing challenges. In response, this study proposes a novel load-balancing algorithm to address these contemporary challenges. The approach leverages dynamic and hybrid load balancing, distinguishing it from …

Multimodal Techniques For Malware Classification, Jonathan Jiang

Master's Projects

The threat of malware has remained a serious concern for computer networks and systems, highlighting the need for accurate classification techniques. This research adopted the structured nature of PE files incorporated with a multi-modal machinelearning approach, to classify malware types. Features extracted from the PE headers were used to train an LSTM model. Features extracted from the PE sections were used to train a CNN model. Probabilities produced from these two models were then concatenated and fed into an SVM classifier. This multi-modal approach demonstrated high accuracy by experimenting with and verifying the approach on a large and labeled dataset. …

An Attributed And Diverse Encoder-Decoder Processing Technique For Anomaly Detection., Kenneth Antony John

Master's Projects

Attributed graphs are graphs that contain extra information about the attributes of nodes and edges. They can be used to model a plethora of real-world scenarios like social networks, bank transactions, and even academic citation data. Anomalies in such graphs can be irregularities or unusual patterns that are observed in the attributes or the structure of the graph. Anomaly detection in attributed networks is a crucial task, aiming to identify such anomalies. Existing methodologies use various deep learning techniques using graph neural networks, graph encoder-decoder architectures, and multi-layer perceptions. This study proposes a new approach to improve the existing methods …

Explainable Reinforcement Learning For Network Routing Optimization, Yu Xiu

Master's Projects

Software-defined Networking (SDN) provides a solution for configuring multiple network devices by offering a centralized controller architecture. Network routing is one of the most crucial problems in network configuration. In particular, the surging network traffic demands require efficient routing techniques to load balance communication links. In order to optimize the communication path’s utilization and reduce request blocking, this project utilizes Reinforcement Learning (RL) to decide the routes for given network requests. Furthermore, we adopt Explainable Reinforcement Learning (XRL) to explain the RL learning agent’s decision-making process to enhance the trustworthiness of our approach. In particular, we focus on Feature Importance …

Reinforcement Learning And Hidden Markov Models For Simulating And Analyzing Social Engineering Attacks., Bharkavi Sachithanandam

Master's Projects

The advent of the internet has revolutionized communication and connectivity on a global scale. Now every computer is connected to the internet. Although this technological advancement has made human life easier, this has also led to an increase in sophisticated methods of exploitation. Social Engineering is such a prominent threat to the human community. Social engineering attackers manipulate the victim into giving away sensitive details. Understanding the dynamics of social engineering is crucial for developing measures to help individuals and organizations avoid falling prey to these deceptive tactics. Hence it is essential to understand the attackers. Thus gaining insight into …

Ai Generated Text Detection & Source Identification, Anjana Priyatham Tatavarthi

Master's Projects

The detection of AI-generated text by the application of advanced machine learning techniques not only presents a promising approach toward distinguishing human-written content from machine-generated text, but also identifies the source model used for the generation of the text. This helps address the growing concerns about authenticity and accountability in digital communication. The difference between human-generated and AI-generated text lies in the core of several applications, from news media to academic integrity.It also helps in ensuring the transparency and trust in content-driven environments. However, existing models fall short in accurately detecting AI-generated text and identifying the specific AI source due …

Optimizing Web Design Code Generation: A Comparative Study Of Finetuning, Pretrained Models, And Rag (Retrieval Augmented Generation), Srinivas Rao Chavan

Master's Projects

Website Creation is revolutionized by automated code generation, reducing the development effort, speeding the production process, and ensuring consistency in design. Automated web design code generation has emerged as a transformative tool bridging the gap between design and development. In this research, a website design tool is developed and used to create visual layouts, exporting them as JSON designs. These JSON outputs were then transformed into textual prompts, optimized using established HCI principles and UI/UX rules to ensure consistency, visual hierarchy, aesthetics and minimalistic design, accessibility, user-friendly navigation and flexibility. These generated prompts were fed into large language models for …

Fuzzy Similarity Analysis Of Effective Training Samples To Improve Machine Learning Estimations Of Water Quality Parameters Using Sentinel-2 Remote Sensing Data, Alireza Taheri Dehkordi, Mohammad Javad Valadan Zoej, Ali Mehran, Mohsen Jafari, Amir Masoud Chegoonian

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Continuous monitoring of water quality parameters (WQPs) is crucial due to the global degradation of water quality, primarily caused by climate change and population growth. Typically, machine learning (ML) models are employed to retrieve WQPs, but they require a large amount of training samples to accurately capture the data relationships. Even with sufficient training data, discrepancies still exist between values of predicted and in-situ WQPs. This study proposes a fuzzy similarity analysis (FSA) technique to enhance ML estimates of WQPs by using the prediction errors in effective training samples. The method was successfully applied to retrieve turbidity (Turb) and specific …

Effects Of The Sacramento Neighborhood Alcohol Prevention Project On Rates Of Child Abuse And Neglect 7 Years Post-Implementation (1999–2010), Bridget Freisthler, Jennifer Price Wolf

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Introduction: Evaluations of alcohol environmental prevention efforts examine short-term effects of these interventions on alcohol-related problems. We examine whether the effects of the Sacramento Neighborhood Alcohol Prevention Project (SNAPP), an alcohol environmental intervention aimed to reduce alcohol-related problems in two neighbourhoods, on child abuse and neglect remained 7 years post-implementation. Methods: SNAPP used a quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design, where intervention activities occurred in the South area, followed by those in the North area 2 years later. Our sample size is 3912 space–time units (326 census block groups × 12 years [1999–2010]). Outcomes were measured at the household level and …

Tracked Gulls Help Identify Potential Zones Of Interaction Between Whales And Shipping Traffic, Megan A. Cimino, Heather Welch, Jarrod A. Santora, David Kroodsma, Elliott L. Hazen, Steven J. Bograd, Pete Warzybok, Jaime Jahncke, Scott A. Shaffer

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Seabird-vessel interactions are often studied through the lens of fisheries bycatch, but seabirds encounter many watercraft types. Western Gulls Larus occidentalis breeding on the Farallon Islands (California, USA) have a foraging domain that encompasses both shipping lanes and productive fishing grounds, resulting in ample opportunities for vessel encounters. Previous research showed that these Western Gulls can serve as ecosystem indicators because their foraging behavior is linked to ocean prey conditions, and because their foraging grounds overlap with that of Humpback Whales Megaptera novaeangliae, which can make prey accessible. Because ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are concerns for whales …